I knew who it would be. When I got home, I called my sister, and we talked for a long, long time.
∞
Jesus and Mary, learning was terrible. I remembered why I had hated school so much. But after my call with Ellie, I had needed to do something unemotional and dull.
“Buenos días. Me llamo Camdyn y me allegro aprender el español,” I repeated. That was a lie. Well, my name was Camdyn, but I was not happy to learn Spanish. However, I wanted to speak and understand it now more than ever. “¿Cómo te llamas?” I asked my screen. “Mucho gusto. ¿Cómo estás?” I definitely liked to learn the other way a lot more, even if some of the vocabulary wasn’t really applicable in many situations. But I forced myself to do the app for a while longer before I switched over to my other study method.
“Muy buenas tardes, nos enfrenta a un escenario de tensión en el estadio hoy,” the announcer said, and I tried to follow along, mouthing the words I recognized. This had opened a whole new world to me, not just of language, but of sports. I watched the action unfold and listened closely to the commentary. “Entramos en los últimos diez minutos. La intensidad se ha incrementado en la recta final. ¡Remate rechazado de Márquez desde fuera del área! ¡Córner para el Real!”
“¡Vamos!” I urged the screen as the door to the room opened.
“Hi,” César said. “Are you busy?” He came into the office and I closed my phone.
“No, not at all,” I told him and smiled, because this was absolutely my favorite time of day. “How was practice?”
“Not bad. How was your day?”
I shrugged an answer as he knelt down next to the couch. “Ready?” he asked. I nodded and pulled up the sweatshirt I was wearing so that he could rest his cheek against my tummy. I closed my eyes when I felt us skin to skin. I talked to her during the day, but this was his time with her.
“Hola,” he whispered. He turned and kissed the rounded bump of our baby. “¿Cómo estás, chiquita? ¿Reconoces mi voz? ¿Me has extrañado?”
I let my one hand drift until it rested on his head, his short hair tickling my palm. He talked and talked to the baby in Spanish, mostly words and phrases that I didn’t recognize but wanted to understand very much. He kissed my stomach more and nuzzled with his cheek and nose, his breath warm against my skin. It was so soothing that I almost always fell into a bit of a trance.
Yep, definitely my favorite part of the day. We had started this by accident, really, just because César had started directing some conversation toward my stomach. It had evolved into something a lot more personal—intimate. He talked to the baby every night, and I looked forward to it all day long.
“Te quiero,” he whispered. “Te quiero muchísimo.” He kissed again, and I sighed, eating up the affection that was meant for the baby.
“Your accent is different,” I told him sleepily.
“Different from what?” He sat up and my hand slid off his neck from where I had been resting it. “Are you awake?”
“Huh?” I opened my eyes. “I’m mostly awake.” I wouldn’t sleep through this—I enjoyed every second of it.
César was still staring at me. “Your eyes are red.”
I started to sit up and he put his hand behind my back and got me there. “I talked to Ellie for a long time.”
“And that made you cry?”
“Everything makes me cry,” I said grumpily. “I also cried this afternoon when the guy dropped off more boxes of the baby stuff that you ordered and he told me to have a beautiful day. I started to cry so hard that he stopped the truck to make sure that I was all right.”
César tried to look sympathetic and he rubbed my knee. “Poor Camdyn. Did you have a beautiful day, besides the tears?”
“I guess so. I saw Lindy and Katie, Davis Blake’s girlfriend. You already know who she is—the woman who lives with him.” I watched to see if César made a sad, “Katie’s the one who got away” kind of face, but he just nodded, not seeming traumatized by what I had said. “They want to have a baby shower for us at Katie and Davis’ house. With my friends, your friends, your family, and Woodsmen people. I thought your mom would be really happy to come, right?”
He nodded at me. “Everyone in my family will want to come. It’s lucky that Katie and Davis have a big place.”
Good. I liked his mom and I wanted her to like me back, her and all the rest of his relatives. I played with the button on the shirt I wore. “So, you know, you should go ahead and tell your friends about the baby so they don’t go into shock when they see the invitations.”
“That’s a really good thing,” he told me. “I’m glad you’re ok with this.”
“Sure, yeah,” I said quickly, brushing it aside. I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to tell everyone else I knew and how I was going to deal with the fallout. I frowned, feeling grumpier.
“Come down to the gym with me,” César said.
“No.”
“Yes.” He lifted me off the couch and stood me on my feet. “You’ll feel better afterwards, you always do. Go change and come on.” He looked down at me. “By the way, is that my shirt?”
Sure was, and he was just about to see another one. I pulled on one of his soft t-shirts over my new, industrial-strength bra. The shirt came down past my butt and covered the edge of my shorts.
The best thing about working out with César was the view, I decided, as I pumped my legs away on the stationary bike. He watched himself in the mirror to get
